


the comfort we find in each other

by orphan_account



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Sick Character, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 23:39:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13259016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I miss her, Lucretia,” he says in a raspy whisper, and the pain in his voice is so raw it hurts Lucretia to hear.“Me too,” she says. “So much.”





	the comfort we find in each other

The way she dies is stupid. Unfair. Bullshit, absolute bullshit, it shouldn’t have _happened_ -

But it did. It was a virus that killed her- her _and_ Taako; it was something that affected them worse than the others who got it. The plane they’re on doesn’t have elves, which is why Barry thinks it made them so sick. Magnus got it too, but it was just like the flu for him. Bad, but not lethal. He got better. Lup and Taako didn’t.

It hadn’t started seriously, though most illnesses don’t. Lup had a headache, and Taako had chills. Within a few days, they were both bedridden with drastically lowered temperatures and vomiting and coughing and exhaustion. Just like the flu. 

It might have been something Merle could have helped with, if he hadn’t died early in the cycle doing Parley. So Barry ended up in charge, doing everything he knew to help. Trying to keep everyone hydrated and fed, trying to figure out if this was something to be cured or something to be treated. When Magnus started getting better, it was a relief. When Taako and Lup started getting worse, it was a shock. Taako died first, delirious and pale and alone. There wasn’t any drama to it, no blood or tears or farewells. He just died in the middle of the night and Lucretia found him the next morning, cold and quiet. 

Lup made it a day longer before her body gave out. Nobody told her about Taako. She asked for him in a moment of lucidity, asked where he was. How he was. Davenport told her he was fine, that he’d been asking about her too. They knew her heart stopped sometime around noon, because Barry brought her a bowl of soup for lunch and found her, still warm.

Magnus was still sick, still weak, so Barry, Lucretia, and Davenport had to dig the graves and bury the twins. It was hard, grueling work, made worse by the tears that first Barry couldn’t hold back, then Lucretia. By the time they had dug the holes deep and wide enough, Lucretia’s palms were blistered and bloody, and Barry’s face was streaked with dirt and sweat and tears, and his glasses had disappeared. Davenport had been crying too, though he tried harder to hide it- the captain shouldn’t show weakness. Even in times this trying.

They had a funeral- even now, even after countless cycles of deaths, they still hold funerals, when they can. Nobody says anything, anymore. They’ve said everything they can in cycles past. They just lower their friends into the ground and stand in silence until it's time to fill in the graves.

\---

Grief manifests in different ways for all of them. Lucretia doesn't sleep, spends her nights pacing the ship or curled up in Lup’s bed, clutching her pillow because it still _smells_ like her. Barry only sleeps, stays locked up in his room, doesn’t eat or drink or shower until Davenport threatens to throw him off the ship. Even then, he crawls right back into bed after a long shower and a bowl of broth. 

Magnus gets better slowly but surely, and Lucretia tries not to spite him for it. He and Davenport discuss whether it’s even worth it to try and recover the Light. It landed so far away, and this planet is so vast. They’re down three people, and the people on this planet haven’t shown much of an interest in hospitality. 

“We have to try,” is what Magnus says, and Davenport frowns. 

“We’re down to the four of us, and with Barry how he is, it’s more like three. I just don’t know if the risk is worth it.”

“This plane will get destroyed. The Hunger will get stronger. We _have_ to try.”

In the end, they decide to go after the Light. Davenport leaves Lucretia specific instructions to stay with the ship, and to fly away as soon as the Hunger arrives, even if he and Magnus aren’t back yet. Magnus pats her on the back, gives her a sympathetic look, and then he and Davenport disappear into the trees surrounding the clearing the Starblaster is parked in. 

If the ship was quiet before, it’s silent as the grave now- a fitting analogy, Lucretia thinks. She forces herself to update her journals- she’s been neglecting her writing since Lup died. It’s strange that grief is hitting her so hard- certainly Lup has died before, although more often in a blaze of glory than sick and pale and confused. Maybe it’s because she couldn’t save her when she actually had the chance- the last time Lup died, it was out on a reconnaissance mission when she and Magnus were discovered by palace guards serving an especially cruel tyrant. Lucretia had been on the ship, far away, and there was nothing she could have done. This time, she was right next to Lup, but was as useless as if she had been miles away.

“Stop dwelling,” she mutters to herself, closing her eyes and trying to will away the guilt that has settled in her chest. “She’s gone but she’ll be back. It’s not your fault.”

She wishes she could believe herself.

\---

The third day without Magnus and Davenport is heralded by a beautiful sunrise that paints the clouds pink and purple and yellow, and the sight of it fills Lucretia with a light, airy feeling that she only later realizes is hope. She hasn’t seen Barry since Davenport bullied him into eating, and she decides she’d rather not find him as an emaciated corpse in a month. She knocks on his door out of habit, but isn’t surprised there’s no reply. 

She cracks the door and calls inside, “I’m coming in, Barry.” Still no response.

The smell hits her as she opens the door- his room smells like sweat and old food and dirty laundry, and with the lights off, Lucretia has to squint to make out the figure curled up on the bed.

“I’m turning on the light,” she says, and fumbles for a second before finding the light switch and flipping it on. Barry’s room isn’t much better in the light. It’s dirty and depressing and somehow, the smell seems worse now that Lucretia can see the empty bowls and plates on his desk and the piles of clothes on his floor. Barry is curled up in his bed, underneath the covers and facing away from the door.

“Barry?” she tries, but he doesn’t so much as shift. For a second, Lucretia is worried that she’s too late and he’s already an emaciated corpse, when she sees the gentle rise and fall of his body as he breathes.

“Barry, you have to get up. This is… it’s unsustainable. And frankly, it’s really gross.”

That earns her a grunt, but it’s so faint she’s not sure she didn’t just imagine it. She steps over a pile of shirts and wrinkles her nose at the sight of Barry’s greasy hair poking out from under the covers. 

“Go away,” he says finally, voice raspy and cracking like he hasn’t spoken in days. Which he probably hasn’t. 

“No,” she says, and takes another step towards the bed. “This is ridiculous. You need to get up.”

Barry grunts again, and curls in on himself further. Lucretia bites the inside of her mouth, eyebrows knit, trying to think of something to say. She sees a pile of tissues next to Barry, wadded up and old and gods, but he smells bad. 

“This isn’t what Lup would want.”

He turns to face her at that, and his eyes are red, his face is covered in stubble, and his cheeks are sunken. He looks like shit, and he looks angry.

Whatever he wants to say, though, he keeps to himself. 

“Get up,” Lucretia says, louder than she means to, and takes the final step so that she’s towering over Barry, hands on her hips. “Get up, Barry.”

“Go away.” 

“You’re acting like a child. Get up, clean yourself up, and eat something. You look awful.”

“So do you, “ he says, venom in his voice. “Don’t act like you have it together. I hear you shuffling around at night. Going into her room. You look like shit, Lucretia.”

Part of her prickles at that, wanting to say something cruel back, and part of her wants to laugh. Instead, she drops her hands from her hips and softens her expression.

“Can I sit?” She asks as she perches herself at the foot of his bed, not giving him time to respond. He peers at her over his shoulder, but all the fight has left his eyes. 

“I miss her, Lucretia,” he says in a raspy whisper, and the pain in his voice is so raw it hurts Lucretia to hear.

“Me too,” she says. “So much.”

“I couldn’t save her. I didn’t-” His voice catches, and he swallows down the lump in his throat. “I didn’t know how. To save her.”

“None of us did. Even Merle probably wouldn’t have been able to help.”

“Yeah, well.” He gives her a sad, crooked smile. “What else is new.”

Lucretia huffs out a laugh at that. “True enough.”

They sit in silence for a beat, and then Barry shifts so he’s propped up on his elbows, looking at Lucretia. 

“How’s Magnus?”

“He’s fine. He and Cap- _Davenport_ \- went out after the Light. They’ve been gone about three days.”

Barry sighs, and shuts his eyes. “Gods, I don’t want to get up.”

“You need to. I don’t know if you can smell yourself, but you desperately need a shower.”

“Rude,” he says, eyes still closed.

“If you get up, I’ll make lunch. What do you want?”

Barry sighs. “You know what I want? I want tomato soup and grilled cheese. Like my mom used to make. Can you make that?”

“Only one way to find out,” Lucretia says, and feels herself smiling, just a little. She doesn’t leave the room until she sees Barry stand up and move towards the bathroom. 

In the kitchen they have everything she needs for grilled cheese, and she finds a can of tomato soup in the back of the pantry. She manages to heat up the soup and get a nice toast on the sandwiches without setting fire to anything- Lup’s cooking lessons are paying off. She even gets the cheese to just the right consistency of melted but not runny, and when Barry emerges from his room, clean-shaven and smelling like soap, it’s just in time for lunch.

They eat in silence, and Lucretia doesn’t miss the way Barry cleans his plate and finishes his soup in record time. He pushes his chair back like he’s going to get up and leave, but then he looks at Lucretia and stops. And it must be the look on her face, the exhaustion in her eyes that softens his features and makes him frown. 

“I don’t know why I fell apart,” he says, “It’s not the first time she’s died. It’s not even- it’s not even the _worst_ way she’s died, I don’t get it-”

“I think it’s just… exhaustion. I think we’re tired. We keep losing Merle every cycle, and we’re no closer to stopping the Hunger, and it’s- gods, Barry, it’s killing me. I’m so tired. I just want this to be over.”

“Me too,” he says. “Me too.”

They sit in silence for what feels like hours, Lucretia absently stirring her now-cold soup and Barry picking at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt.

“She’d want us to do better,” he says. “She’d tell us we’re being ridiculous, that she’s coming back, that we need to get our shit together.”

Lucretia snorts. “She wouldn’t be wrong.”

Barry nods, and goes back to picking at his shirt.

“So let’s do it.” Lucretia is as surprised as Barry looks to hear her voice saying those words, but she continues. “Let’s get our shit together. We have things to do. We were chosen to be on this crew for a reason. I need to be writing. You need to be researching. Magnus and Davenport are out there looking for the Light. We need to be doing something important, too.”

She’s not sure where the words are coming from, but speaking them fills her with bravado, with a sense of power. It’s the way she feels when Lup is passionate and giving a speech, her words sparking a fire that burns in Lucretia’s heart. And Barry is responding to it like he responds to Lup- sitting up straighter, leaving his shirt alone, and listening to Lucretia. When she stops to take a breath, he looks more alive than he has in a long time.

“Let’s do it,” he says. “Let’s make her proud.”

Lucretia nods, and after that, things are different.

She pours herself into her journals, going outside of the ship to take notes on plants and animals and weather patterns. He cleans his room, airs it out, and returns to the lab. He’s working on some new triangulation method, something that’s supposed to be more accurate. Davenport and Magnus come back several days later, looking worse for wear but carrying the Light of Creation. Barry locks himself away in the lab for hours at a time, studying it, measuring it, trying to figure out what it _is_. Sometimes Lucretia joins him, taking notes on it and on the ways Barry tries to learn about it. They sit together fairly often, shoulders touching sometimes, and very rarely speaking. The quiet warmth of another person, another _human_ , is something they both need, some days. 

Barry finds Lucretia curled up in Lup’s bed one night, sobbing, clutching Lup’s pillow like it’s the only thing keeping her from floating away. He doesn’t say anything, just sits on the bed with her and rubs her back. They don’t talk about it the next day.

Likewise, Lucretia finds Barry crying in the kitchen at 2 a.m., and makes him a grilled cheese sandwich. They’re out of tomato soup, but the sandwich seems to be enough. Barry washes the pan and the plate and quietly thanks Lucretia. She nods, and tells him to get some sleep.

The rest of the year passes painfully slowly, but it passes. When the Hunger descends, Davenport is already steering the Starblaster through its inky tendrils and out of the planar system. Bright white threads weave together three familiar forms. When the reset is complete, Merle and Taako and Lup are standing there, Merle with a scratch on his face, Taako with smudged eyeshadow, and Lup with a frown.

“Well that fuckin’ sucked,” Taako says, and Magnus is wrapping him and Merle in a bear hug that Lup just barely manages to sidestep, but Lucretia and Barry are hugging her before she can get much further.

“Whoa, whoa, take it down a notch. I just reset, I dunno if my bod can take all this loving so soon.”

“I missed you,” Lucretia whispers as Barry says, “Sorry, babe.”

“Missed you too, Luc,” Lup says, and runs her fingers through Lucretia’s hair. She presses a quick kiss to her forehead, then does the same to Barry. “I’m here.”

Her hand is warm on the back of Lucretia’s neck as Lup presses their foreheads together, and then she kisses Barry as Magnus hoots and Merle wolf-whistles.

“Alright, alright, everyone settle down.” Davenport is as no-nonsense as ever, asking Merle for a briefing on the last Parley while Lucretia records it. Barry takes Lup to see the latest triangulation machine, and as she copies down everything Merle has to say, she feels a heavy, syrupy relief wash over her. She’s here. Lup is here. All of her friends- her _family_ , really, are here. And it may not last, but it’s enough for her here and now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
